


Turning Tables

by Taitai83



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Fix-It, IDK if I'm using 'salt' and 'crack' correctly, In which I psychoanalyze Lila with literal science in chap 2, Lila salt, Marinette's done with the high road, Two can play at this game, and all the adults in this show because come on, and maybe crack fic?, salt fic, the point is I just want to punch that little brat in the face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 14:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20622326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taitai83/pseuds/Taitai83
Summary: Everyone believes every word out of Lila's mouth, no matter how preposterous. But if Lila's lies were true, there would be significant consequences. Marinette's had enough of the high road, she can take Lila down by playing along.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Ladybug episode pissed me right off. I mean, dangerous Adrien (dandrien? yeah, no) was cool, but my sense of fairness was overwrought when I was a kid and it turns out that it's not any better as an adult watching things like this. So this is an epilogue to the show that follows the preposterousness to its logical conclusion.

“If you’re so quick to accuse Lila you might overlook another potential baddie!”

“But Alya, she-“

“I’m going to go track down some fingerprints!”

“She _literally _faked-“

“Good luck bestie!”

And she was gone.

Marinette growled in frustration. This was ridiculous! Alya said she believed her, but somehow conveniently forgot about the whole “she pushed me down the stairs” part when trying to figure out “_who_” could _possibly _have framed Marinette.

Marinette was starting to suspect that Lila had some kind of Jedi mind control, there was no way everyone around her was this clueless. Everyone just _accepted _every preposterous word that came out of her mouth.

“I’m glad to see you’re capable of coming back to your senses.”

“As you said, things aren’t always what they seem to be at first sight.”

Taken aback but recovering quickly, Marinette frowned at the girl as she sauntered away.

_You know what Lila? Forget the high road, two can play at this game._

She had some phone calls to make.

Two days later saw the class milling around before the bell signaling the start of the day. Everyone had seemed relieved that Marinette was back among them again, but she was still receiving some sideways glances when they thought she couldn’t see.

With about 5 minutes before the start of class, the door opened and a cheerful, friendly looking woman with her hair tied back neatly walked in, trailed by an anxious looking Mr. Damocles and Mrs. Rossi herself, who were talking urgently together.

“Good morning everyone, I’m looking for Lila Rossi?”

Everyone looked up at the stranger, and Marinette glanced to the door, delighted to see the shadows of some larger men lurking out of direct sight.

“That’s me? Mama? What’s going on?”

“Its-“

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” the new woman cut off Mrs. Rossi. “We’re here to help you. We just want to make sure you’re taken care of properly.”

“What do you mean, ‘taken care of’?”

“Well when we heard about this mysterious illness, we couldn’t help but be worried about you, my angel,” Mrs. Rossi replied, with a tone of voice that was clearly meant to be soothing. “This is Dr. Cori, she’s the best person to help you.”

“But I don’t need _help_,” Lila simpered, though Marinette could see the uncertainty flashing in her eyes as she looked at her mother. “I manage just fine.”

“But you don’t, Lila,” Marinette chimed in, eyes wide and innocent as she saw Lila’s uncertainty shift to anger as she turned to her. “Just look at what happened this week.”

“But I _apologized_, Marinette, and you said-“

“Yes, of course I forgive you, Lila,” Marinette continued with as earnest an expression as she could muster. “But you have to see how dangerous your condition is!”

Marinette turned to Dr. Cori, Mr. Damocles, and Mrs. Rossi.

“This last week was one of the worst ones of my life,” she said, maintaining her doe eyes as much as possible, and turning around to look at everyone.

“I know you didn’t mean it, of course, but the things you said hurt me and my reputation really badly. Classmates I’ve known my entire life believed the horrible things you said about me without any question.”

She was pleased to see some uncomfortable shifting from the students in the room, though she didn’t make eye contact, and turned back toward the adults from the front. Lila tried to interject.

“I know, Marinette, but-“

“Teachers and administrators who I’ve worked with for years on school functions and events expelled me without even hearing my side of the story.”

Mr. Damocles looked rather ashamed as she met his eye, and she kept hers wide, but didn’t have to fake the hurt in them.

“Yes, but-“ Lila tried again.

“It was traumatic for me,” she exclaimed, turning back to Lila herself. “Seeing how quickly your _unintentional _lies could upend my life. And I’m just a teenage girl, a _nobody_, no one of importance,” she said with emphasis, again noting the uncomfortable shifting from her classmates. “What if your disease makes you say things about someone like Adrien, who already has to have a bodyguard for protection? Or the Mayor? We could have a constitutional crisis on our hands!”

She gestured to Adrien and Chloe in the front of the room.

“I wouldn’t-“

“But even worse, your condition makes you _physically _do things you don’t mean!”

There was a pause at that.

“What are you-?“

“When you walked down the stairs and then said that I had pushed you and you’d twisted your knee!”

“I don’t thin-“

Marinette grabbed Lila’s hand, as if trying to comfort her.

“If you don’t have control over your actions, what could happen next? Faking an injury isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but what about the next time? What if you hurt someone? What if you attacked someone without meaning to?”

Lila yanked her hand out of Marinette’s, clearly trying to keep from snarling.

“I wouldn’t-“

“But if you don’t have control, you don’t know what you would or wouldn’t do, Lila,” Adrien piped up unexpectedly from the front. He wore an expression of anxious concern, but Marinette could see he was fighting a smirk.

“Ms. Rossi, Ms. Dupain-Cheng is right,” declared Dr. Cori. “We’re here to help you. I work with the best team of neurologists in the world, we’ll be able to find out what is causing your ailment and help, and keep you from harm in the meantime.”

“But I really don’t think-“

“It’s ok my angel, really. Nothing bad is going to happen, everyone here just wants you to be healthy and safe,” Mrs. Rossi cut her off with tears in her eyes.

“Marinette is right, Lila.”

“You need to take care of your health!”

“We all just want you to be safe.”

The supportive urging of her classmates added to the pressure, and there was nothing else for it.

“O-okay, okay mama, you’re right. I want to get better,” Lila sniffled, trying to create tears but failing because she was clearly furious at this turn of events. She accepted the offered support from their classmates with a passable watery smile, and gave her mother a strong hug before walking out the door with the entourage.

As the door swung shut behind them, Marinette dropped down into her seat, not having to fake the tears in her eyes as she clasped her hands in her lap.

A moment of silence passed as she felt every eye on her.

“Marinette?”

“Marinette, we’re really sorry.”

“We shouldn’t have-“

“Please, guys,” she waved them off. “Please not now, I’ll be ready to listen later, but not now.”

And she buried her head in her arms and let the tears fall.

Ms. Bustier cleared her throat and began the class.

After a few moments, she felt Alya’s arm across her back.

“M, I am _really _sorry,” she whispered.

“I know Alya, thank you, but I can’t talk about it right now,” Marinette whispered back.

She felt a few understanding pats on her back and Alya’s arm withdrew. She kept her head buried in her arms as she listened to Ms. Bustier’s voice, trying to ignore the feeling of eyes on her. It would be alright now. Now everyone knew that Lila was a liar, even if they all thought it was unintentional. It would have to be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue, the results of Lila's exams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got carried away, this was meant to be an epilogue and wound up being longer than the first part ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Mrs. Rossi, if you’ll come this way, we can discuss the results of your daughter’s tests.”

Dr. Cori smiled kindly as she held the door open for her, letting her precede her into the private conference room. The doctor sat at the computer and gestured to the chair next to her as she brought some images up on the screen.

“Ms. Rossi is a very interesting case,” Dr. Cori began.

“Were you able to find out what’s causing her illness?” Mrs. Rossi asked earnestly.

“Uh, well, no, not exactly,” Dr. Cori faltered. “Ms. Rossi doesn’t have an _illness_, you see.”

“But then what is causing this terrible disorder?”

Dr. Cori frowned slightly. “Mrs. Rossi, Ms. Rossi isn’t _ill. _There’s no disease or infection. For that matter, nor does she have any injuries, to her knee or otherwise. But she does have some peculiar neurological activity, if you'll allow me to explain.”

The doctor opened a program, showing a gray box on the left, an outline of a human brain with bright red pixelated areas in the center, and a picture of Lila, looking rather bored, on the right.

“These are the results of the fMRI scan your daughter had. The red indicates areas of higher glucose metabolism, which we use as a proxy of brain activity. This is a baseline image, the gray box is what Ms. Rossi saw at the time the scan was taken, and you can see her expression as she looked at it. There is constant activity in the brain, even at rest, which is why these areas are red,” she gestured to the screen. Mrs. Rossi nodded in understanding.

“Now, the next thing we did, is showed her some images that would be familiar, but not likely to elicit an emotional response.”

The doctor clicked a button and the image switched to a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Lila still looked bored, but the red areas shifted to different places in the brain outline.

“You can see how the pattern of activity changed.” She clicked again and the image became the President of France. The red shifted again, but not very much.

“This is an image of a familiar but not emotionally-connected person. As people are social creatures, the brain responds differently to a human face than stationary objects.”

As Mrs. Rossi nodded again, Dr. Cori continued.

“So the images I’ve shown you thus far represent the baseline neural activity for a living person seeing someone they recognize. The next step was to measure the response to those she’s connected to.”

The image shifted to Adrien Agreste. The expression on Lila’s face in her photo changed to a dreamy smile, but the red areas in the brain didn’t shift much at all. Mrs Rossi frowned and turned back to Dr. Cori.

“This is a picture of the boy she says is her boyfriend. Based on her expression, I think that’s what she WANTS us to think, but you can see that her neural activity isn’t much different in response to a picture of him than it is to M. Macron.”

“But what does that-“

“Just a moment, Mrs. Rossi, I want to show you a couple other images and then we can talk about these results all together. Now…”

The image shifted a picture of herself. Lila smiled happily in the photo, but again, the brain imaging didn’t show much difference in the pattern of activity.

“As her mother, you would be the person most bonded to her,” the doctor explained. “But she isn’t having a normal response. For comparison, this is the brain of a cognitively “normal” person to an image of their mother…”

The doctor pulled up a different screen that showed the red dots in a very different pattern than what was on Lila’s image.

“In this case, there’s lots of activity in the dorsal striatum, that’s here,” she said, gesturing to a big red blob in the middle of the screen. “That’s the area that receives dopamine, which is involved in reward and feelings of happiness. Additionally, there’s a good deal of activity in the amygdala, down here. That’s one of the areas that houses receptors for oxytocin, which is involved in bonding. You can see that Lila has very little activity in these areas.”

Mrs. Rossi felt her heartrate pick up.

“But does that mean that Lila doesn’t love me?”

Dr. Cori looked stricken. “Oh Mrs. Rossi, it’s not as simple as that! What it basically means is that Lila is unable to feel the kinds of emotions that you or I would associate with bonding and love. She almost certainly feels connected to you, you’re her mother. But she probably doesn’t understand the regular range of human emotions.”

“But what can I DO?” Mrs. Rossi was fighting back tears.

“Well, in some cases like this, people can be taught to recognize emotions in others. It’s hard, because it’s instinctual to you and me, which is how the species has survived for so long. But it’s not instinctual for Ms. Rossi, she would need someone to explain people’s reactions to her. It seems she’s learned somewhat, you can see her reactions in the photographs are what one would ‘expect’ her to do, but it’s likely that it won’t be as easy for her with strangers. She’ll need pretty constant supervision, for you to teach her the morality of interaction that most people would just understand. This will be hard as a teenager, when she’s certainly going to be striving for MORE independence, not less, but it will be important for her growth into an adult.

Mrs. Rossi steeled herself.

“If that’s what it takes, then I’ll do it. If I have to go to school with her every day and make sure she understands what’s happening, then that’s what I’ll do!”

Dr. Cori smiled. “She’s a lucky girl to have you for her mom. I do want to show you one more thing, that’s a bit concerning.”

She brought up the next image, which came with a picture of Ms. Dupain-Cheng. Lila’s face was fairly neutral, but the red pixels in the brain outline shifted so that the… alpaca?... actually turned purple instead of red.

“As you can see, Ms. Rossi DID have a significant reaction to the picture of Ms. Dupain-Cheng. She was the girl who was expelled because of Lila’s stories, correct? I’ve rarely seen such activity in the amygdala.”

“But I thought you said that was where bonding happened?”

“It’s not that simple, the amygdala is a complex structure, but the easiest way to put it is that it houses the base instincts. In this case, the activity is concentrated in the lateral part of the structure, off to the side, which is where we generally think of anger and hate ‘living’, for lack of a better term. It’s clear that Lila despises this girl, but given what we saw in her school, that’s not a terrible surprise. What IS a surprise is this:”

The image shifted again, and this time Ladybug appeared on the screen. Lila’s face showed happiness and excitement at seeing the super hero who had saved her so many times, but her brain…

“You can see that she clearly despises Ladybug as much as she does Ms. Dupain-Cheng. I don’t know why that would be, but she ALSO clearly knows that she shouldn’t, as she’s schooled her face into a happy mask.”

The doctor pushed back from the computer.

“The point I want to make is this, Mrs. Rossi. Lila doesn’t have the ability to have a proper conscience, doesn’t know how to understand other people’s emotions, and despises the hero of Paris. She needs you to teach her morality, but I don’t think she’s going to be able to fully learn it in Paris, not when every image of Ladybug is going to elicit a response like this.”

Mrs. Rossi took a few moments to process everything she’d been told.

“Then- then we’ll go back to Italy. We’ll go back to Italy so she won’t be triggered by seeing Ladybug, and I’ll stay with her every moment so that I can teach her to recognize emotions!” she declared.

Dr. Cori smiled gently. “I believe you’re doing what’s best for your family, Mrs. Rossi. Best of luck to you. Please, let me know when you find a counselor there for Ms. Rossi so that I can share these findings with them.”

Mrs. Rossi gave her a watery but determined smile, then stood, shook her hand, and strode out of the office.

Dr. Cori watched the poor woman go with mingled feelings of guilt and relief. As the door swung shut behind her, she looked back at her computer. The fake adoring smile on Lila’s face was enough to turn her stomach. Years of studying people’s emotions had given her a highly tuned sense of the creepy.

Securing the files and closing out the program with a sigh, she felt relieved that the Rossis would be removing to Italy and she likely wouldn’t have to testify in a future criminal trial.

“That kid is a fucking psychopath,” she muttered to herself, shutting the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I do have a degree in neuroscience, how did you know? Also, the amygdala is a fascinating brain structure. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note, not a real chapter

Ok, I just want to start out by saying that I'm BLOWN AWAY by the response to this. Who knew my 2 hour rage-write would resonate with so many people? There were a lot of comments that I wanted to address but rather than go one by one I thought I'd cover them all here.

1\. Do me a favor and ignore the "Lila" commenter. First rule of the internet, "don't feed the trolls". I find this person only vaguely annoying and mostly sad that they don't have anything better to do, better not to engage at all.

2\. *puts on nerd hat* Regarding the science in the 2nd chapter! I really do have a degree in neuroscience, and an advanced degree in a related field. All concrete facts in that chapter are true, and my description of the testing is true to the basics of an fMRI and the scientific method. Having controls, both negative (objects and unfamiliar faces) and positive (a "normal" person's brain scan) is VERY. IMPORTANT. in understanding what the tests are telling you.  
All that said, my actual specialty is degenerative disease, and my background in psychology is limited to courses in university. I absolutely believe that Lila is an actual psychopath in the technical sense of the word (manipulative, no remorse for hurting people, etc), but I don't actually know what an fMRI of a psychopath's brain would look like. My selection of those particular regions is based off of what I know about their function and what I know about psychopaths, but I didn't go read actual scientific papers about it for this petty little fanfic lol.  
Always use critical thinking before accepting something as true! And ya know, don't get a science education from a fan fiction site, even from someone who claims to have credentials.

Happy reading! Suck it Lila!


End file.
